


One Tin Soldier

by Lady Aconite (LadyAconiteWolfe), Luciaskyraine



Series: Beginning To End [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Everything Gets Worse, F/F, F/M, Gore, Hurt No Comfort, More angst, Pain, Reverse fix-it, Suicide, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22782334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAconiteWolfe/pseuds/Lady%20Aconite, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luciaskyraine/pseuds/Luciaskyraine
Summary: When all was said, all was done, there were a million different possible outcomes. With so many possibilities there had to be a best outcome. There also had to be a worst outcome.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Mentioned/Background/Past
Series: Beginning To End [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639900
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	One Tin Soldier

No matter how many times she tried to convince herself of the contrary, it would be a lie to say that Byleth didn't cry. It hurt. She'd seen it so many times, why did it still even hurt? Why did she still bother letting it hurt? But that wasn't a decision that she got to make, nor were those questions that she got to answer. Instead, all she could do was try again and try again and try again. Over and over ceaselessly, hoping for some kind of different outcome. But there never was one. It always ended the same. 

Her father was the one thing in the world that she'd ever truly cared about, above and before most if not all other things. None of her students, none of the people she'd come to call friends, none of the men and women in their mercenary company, nothing could have ever compared to the way she'd cared about her father. It was different from how she cared about anyone else, it was older. Before coming to Garreg Mach, she'd never truly been alive. But even in the stillness and emotionless grasp of death, the warmth of his hand atop her head had cracked and splintered at the ceaseless cold. The endless dark. 

And now he was gone. Just gone. Like he'd never even so much as existed in the first place. 

All because of some no-good monster of a woman who thought going around and stabbing people's fathers for no foreseeable reason was a good thing to do. Monica, Kronya, she didn't care what name was toted around, Byleth hated her. That seething hatred that burned in her chest, it was a _monster_ all by itself, and a beast that she couldn't tame for long. 

The first time Byleth had gone through this, back when she was innocent and things hurt less, she hated Kronya. Kronya who committed a punishable offense by taking away one of the few things Byleth held precious and near to her chest. Now though, the flaming ache had slowly just grown colder and colder. It had gone from a blazing flame to a cold and empty pit. A silent understanding that nothing she could do, nothing she'd ever do, would be able to sway the tides of fate to follow a direction she preferred. Sothis told her that once, that certain fates couldn't be changed. They were set in stone, tied to the flow of time in a way that made them unchanging. Her father had already held off the claws of death for a long enough time. Struggled against a death who had the patience to wait. But it was his time. 

Byleth had resented it the first time Sothis said those words to her. Fate. She'd thought it was so stupid, a big fat lie. Now, what was she thinking? Once again sitting in front of a cold gravestone while watching people pass her by from the corner of her eyes, too afraid to approach the woman who was hunched before her father's grave like a guard dog. No tears, never any tears, not in public. He was gone, but she still had students to lead, children to protect. No tears, never any tears, so she pushed down the feelings until her fingers started to turn numb and her chest clenched up like a spring wound taught. No tears, no tears, no tears. 

It wasn't fair! Byleth would burn down the monastery and every kingdom in all of Fodlan if only it had the chance of giving her a happy ending. A way to bring her father back, or better yet keep him from dying in the first place. A way to keep her children from falling into a senseless war that she'd watched repeat itself too many times. A way to give each of them the future and the happiness they craved. She'd burn down all of Fodlan and rebuild it from scratch if only she could give those she loved, those she'd learned to care about, a second choice. Loving them had never been a feeling, but a choice she didn't realize she was making. Perhaps loving her father had been a feeling, but continuing to do so despite her removal from her own emotions was a choice. Deciding to love her children, her friends, her hope, was an entirely different choice but a similar one nonetheless. 

And what could she do for them? In what ways could she honor that choice? Nothing, absolutely nothing. She could barely stand on her own, knees pressed into the freshly dug dirt as she kneeled before her father's gravestone like a sinner begging for forgiveness. She wasn't strong enough. Wasn't stable enough. She didn't have enough control of her own damn emotions. 

She'd done this so many times and was so damn tired of it all. Etched into her memory was every life she'd taken, over and over again. The screams and the spray of blood as another life fell useless to the ground for a war she sure as hell didn't believe in. There was no hero the same way there was no monster, or villain. The world wasn't black and white. It was just different shades of misery, and with each reset, she hacked a piece of her newfound self off to offer to her chosen lord. To offer a brighter future. And that little piece always found itself trampled into the crimson mud as she added another 10 or another 100 or more to the growing list of faces and names she kept in her mind to remind herself that she was never any better than the people she was trying to fight. 

This was the first time in more resets than she could count that Byleth truly felt a piece of herself shatter. 

A hand pressed gently against her shoulder, drawing her from the pit she was quickly spiraling down. "Hey, it's okay. I'm here. You can cry on my shoulder if you need to." Sothis' voice was the one noise that actually traveled through the fog. Sothis was ever-present, and Byleth didn't know if Sothis knew about the resets. The goddess never mentioned them and neither did Byleth. They both just played their parts like marionettes on strings and just like her father, Sothis eventually left her. Left her alone and reeling as she tried to cope with the silence inside her own skull. 

Sothis was hesitant as she spoke. Always better at retorts and chastisement than offering comfort. Nonetheless, the emotions behind the offer hit their mark and the young Eisner felt her eyes start to sting as she glanced at Sothis. No, not here. She refused. Not here. Standing up, she turned on her heels with the same blank expression she always wore, like a weapon or a mask. Or more aptly a shield. Sothis just trotted along behind her as Byleth abandoned her post at her father's grave and followed the too familiar path back to her room. 

No one approached her. No one offered condolences, no one tried to challenge her out of her stupor. She passed her students, but they regarded her with silence and maybe a hint of fear. Either way, they didn't approach her. She arrived at her room unbothered, strode in with her faux confidence, and let the door click shut behind her without a word. 

Only when she was safe, seen only by her other half, did she consider herself safe enough to let those tears fall. 

She collapsed onto her bed in a heap, a shivering breath escaping her body as Sothis sat down next to her. Silently, Byleth pressed her face into Sothis' shoulder and started to cry. These blasted tears that never stopped rushing down her cheeks, the pain that gnawed at her chest, her mind, her entire body was merciless, relentless. 

_What else could she even do?_

Her father was gone, a portion of her life was well and truly gone. Soon, Sothis would be gone and so many of her children too. Without the slightest hint of control, everything would start to fade away and vanish once again. Ending silently, puttering out of existence like dying stars. Just like Sothis, it would be there and then suddenly it would just be gone. 

So she let herself cry, right into the shoulder of her most trusted confidant, she howled and she wailed. She cursed every god she knew outside of the one gently cradling her head, and she cursed the machinations of fate for rendering the only things important to her well and truly out of her control. Like the forsaken child that she was, a child whose life was never so kind in the first place. Having to have lost everything, over and over and over again; fate loved to _mock_ as much as it _sneered._ A victim of fate, and a victim of life, she was nothing but a _scapegoat_. 

She cried because she already knew what would happen next.

She would emerge from her room, eyes rimmed red yet finally dry. She would pretend she was fine, act as though nothing was amiss. She would pretend. She'd gotten good at pretending. Yet, she was the _biggest_ liar to herself. Byleth was _never_ okay, she never had been. Having to endure the cruelest of fates not only once, but _multiple_ times, lies were sometimes _more_ painful than the truth. 

She'd spent her entire life pretending to care about a lot of things. 

She'd spent her entire life pretending that there wasn't something absolutely dark and foul curling around in the confines of her soul. That twisted demon within her shadow, it sneered and cackled, waiting for the day she _slipped_ up. 

She could spend her entire life pretending that everything was fine and she was okay. 

As long as she kept pretending, it would eventually come true. Right? 

So she'd keep pretending this wasn't a reset with a number so high she'd lost count. She'd pretend that she wasn't bracing herself for more loss. She'd pretend that it didn't hurt being utterly and entirely alone except for the one creature she could easily define as being synonymous with her own shadow. She'd just keep on pretending. 

(-)(-)(-)(-)

When Sothis 'died', she found she wasn't able to just keep pretending anymore. Died was perhaps the wrong word, since Sothis had already been dead to begin with. She hadn't died a second time, and she hadn't truly left Byleth entirely on her own. If anything, it was almost the opposite. In a desperate bid to free them both from the everlasting darkness that was Solon's curse, Sothis had truly made it so that Byleth would never be without Sothis. Right down to their very souls, she'd tied them together. Sothis and Byleth were one being now. There was no individual. 

That meant there was no Sothis sitting in the back of Byleth's thoughts. There was no voice whispering over her shoulder. There was nothing but a stretched-out silence that echoed and reverberated against her chest in a way that had grown familiar but uncomfortable with each continued reset. 

In a way, despite being soulbound, Sothis had abandoned her. She was no longer there to comfort her and protect her from her despair--she wasn’t there to guide her, to _teach_ her. No, she simply saved them both, but at the cost of one’s existence. In a way, Byleth was left to _rot_ alone in this cruel, dark world. A world that never gave her any light. A world where she had believed that it would be different each time. Over and over again. What was the point? She had endured this event many times. The pain turned to frigid ice, and she felt like a _tool_ and a _beast_ more than anything else. Not that anyone else would know of that, right? She continued to pretend that it was okay. _It’s going to be okay...it’s going to be okay..._ a mantra that she chanted to herself. Gods were cruel beasts. Idols that were romanticized and worshipped as a savior--but in this cruel world, gods only watched innocents struggle and beg. Their prayers seldom met. 

The longer her students stared at her strange new hair, and the more Rhea, Seteth, and Flayn looked at her like her existence was a marvel, the more she started to really miss Sothis. She hated feeling so cut off, so foreign and different. She was used to being treated with caution and hesitance by strangers who couldn't understand the quirks of her disposition. This was different though. Her children, the students she'd put so much effort into teaching and raising, distanced themselves from her as the Nabateans only tried to push themselves closer and closer to her. Family. 

What a curse. There was no family found by the archbishop’s tender welcome. There was no family in the way Seteth eventually accepted her presence. There was no family when Flayn would cling to her arm, happily smiling and greeting her with pleasantries. It was a _curse._ A reminder of what she'd lost. A grim reminder that they were most likely _using_ her. It made her feel _disdain._ The sickly, insidious feeling rotting inside of her. 

She missed her real family. She missed her father. She missed Sothis. Her other half had been an ever-present source of narration. In the aftermath of her father's death, it had kept Byleth sane to hear Sothis babble about this, that, and whatever under the sun the Goddess could find in order to fill the silence. It kept Byleth from tumbling back into the isolated chill of how things were before coming to Garreg Mach.

There wasn't a Sothis anymore. There was nothing left to keep Byleth sane. 

The thoughts she often tried so hard to suppress came back in full force. Violent thoughts. Careless thoughts. The kinds of thoughts that developed after years upon years of killing for money and survival, the kind that most people learned how to deal with. The intrusive thoughts that were so extreme most people learned how to brush them off or block them out. The kind that sociopaths started to think after enough time. Before coming to the monastery, Byleth was too mute and numb to pay them much mind, and they completely disappeared after the filter that was Sothis started living in Byleth's head. 

Sothis no longer resided with her. Her voice was no longer present--a betrayal and an abandonment of sorts. It was pure irony of course, the way Sothis would chip in and say that they would be together forever. What a joke. They weren’t together. Byleth knew Sothis simply disappeared within her and now she’s a walking goddess.

This cruel fact meant that Byleth was alone in her head and completely out of practice when it came to making those thoughts _Leave Her Alone_.

It was okay though, because this wasn't the first time Byleth had lived through this life. She was used to it. Oh, how she was used to it. She could brush them off and keep ignoring them, then once the war started she'd have more important things to think about. She could do this. Over and over again. She'd already proven that. 

She wanted a distraction, some kind of escape. Her students kept making excuses like they were scared of her, and she didn't want to be around any of the others who shared traces of her hair color. Being around them just made her feel uncomfortable. She wasn't their Goddess. Was she even a God to begin with? Maybe, perhaps in a way she couldn't quite pin down. But the way she and Sothis had often defined the term "God" was removed from how anyone else in the monastery might have. 

Her students would have been the perfect distraction from the swirling cacophony of thoughts. None of them wanted to be around her though. She'd tried to stand behind all of them this time, so none of them decided to stand behind her. How fitting. Laughable really. 

In their absence, the swirling thoughts and screams only seemed to get louder. 

There was no solace for Byleth. Just solitude and her own thoughts. 

**_Kill them all. Kill them. Strangle them. Eat them alive. Show them the wrath of a soulbound goddess._ **

Venomous words wreaked havoc in her mind, and these thoughts were driving her _mad._

(-)(-)(-)(-)

Her face twisted upwards in a disgusted, ugly grimace as she watched from a darkened corner of the monastery. She'd done it. Edelgard had finally done it. She declared war on the Church like she always did. The church, in turn, was quick in trying to rally itself in a fight against the Empire. The Blue Lions and The Golden Deer could only watch nervously, trying to decide which side to pick. Well, for the most part. For Dimitri, the answer was pretty obvious. He wanted Edelgard's head. 

Just like when it came to choosing a house, Byleth didn't pick a side. Instead, worn and weary, she found a corner in which to stand and sneer, the last vestiges of whatever humanity she'd received from her children starting to fray as they once again decided to rip it, and themselves, apart. 

Disgusting. Childish. Dimitri would surely drive everyone around him to their deaths if only to get a taste of Edelgard's blood. Even now so early on into the war, he ran around like some kind of feral animal, scratching and gnawing at the bars of its cage. 

Edelgard wasn't any better, regardless of what those who'd sided with her tried to say. She was just as much of a wondrous monster, dragging the death toll into the tens-of-thousands for what she believed was the right thing to do. Dragging along those who might have different beliefs like some kind of unshifting tide, unbound by the ideals of humanity or compromise. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. 

Then there was Claude, dear sweet little Claude who put as much distance between himself and the fight as he could. This wasn't his war! He had nothing to lose by abandoning all of Fodlan to burn. He had a home to return to outside of this... well, it wasn't a hellscape. Not yet. It would be soon though. 

She'd spent hours, days, moons, years even cooing at all three of them. Falling so deeply in love with each lord in different ways because they were her dear students who slowly became her friends before becoming someone important to her. There was a time and a place where she would have said they'd each taught her an important lesson. That she'd try to stand for a future where all three could be happy. That future didn't exist. It was obvious now. They weren't dear little children, they were all demons and fiends tearing and clawing at the clothes of a piteous God while they hissed and spat and tugged around whatever they could behind them. Making the world dance to their particular whims. No one was good. Nothing was good. 

What did Byleth think? Well, to be honest, she was having trouble finding it in herself to care. 

All the effort, all the time, all the love she'd given to each and every student in school. Did they care? She'd been very careful when she'd reminded each and every one of them of the weight of their actions. The power they held whenever they lifted the weapons she'd so foolishly taught them how to wield. The one thing she always tried to impart to them was not the weight of their weapon, but the weight of the lives they took with it. The way that blood would never leave their hands clean again, just as her hands were stained a deeper crimson each reset she trudged through. Drenching her until she was stained as red as a demon ought to be. 

They didn't care enough. 

They were children, barely leaving their teens. Some of them, like Petra or Lysithea, were only 15 at the start of the school year. They were children, and they acted as such. Sure they were scared and appalled the first time she roused them against bandits. But after that, it slowly mattered less and less. They were the heroes of their stories, playing pretend and killing the bad guys. Byleth didn't believe it for a moment when they tried to turn mournful eyes downwards and speak to the regrets of lives lost. 

Liars. 

Careless flippancy for the lives of others wasn't something that she'd taught them. It was a trait that they'd picked up all on their own. **_Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. Disgusting!_ **They could bemoan the situation all they wanted but the lords had jumped into this fight and it was the soldiers following them that kept the fight going. So they were all either liars or cowards. 

The thoughts swirled around her head, too loud to keep out. Almost like some kind of perpetual buzz, one that she couldn't force to be quiet. They were there and they were screaming at her. 

Byleth didn't want to think about these kinds of thoughts. There was a sharp pain in the back of her mind whenever she started to spiral downwards, silently berating all of her children for their poorer qualities. Almost like Sothis was trying to snap her out of it, yell at her for being a fool and to stop stagnating. But she couldn't just ignore these thoughts this time, they were so loud even if she didn't want them there. She was so used to Sothis brushing them away like flies as her attention was dragged back to the good qualities of those around her. 

The good qualities of her little ones... There'd been so, so many. Those qualities had existed when Sothis was around, when Sothis could be her friend and her father hadn't been in the cold ground. Back when the world was bright for the first time and her children had futures. They didn't anymore. Not in the mind of Byleth. The world was dark, cast in a shade of venom and gloom. 

Mercie and Annette were fighting. Ashe had to watch the man who raised him die on someone else's blade, watch her be praised as though she was some kind of hero instead of a blind fanatic. The church was full of them. Seteth and Flayn only cared about Byleth now that her hair had changed shade. Dorothea and Bernadetta were being forced into a war they didn't belong in. Caspar and Linhardt too. Marianne was so close to giving up and putting a knife to her own throat, one that Hilda's constant praise and reassurance couldn't convince her to put down. 

All Byleth could manage to force out in terms of coherent thought was the fact that they deserved it. It made her sick, and she was more appalled with herself for a long and silent moment than she could ever be with her children. But that moment passed and the thought only grew louder and more all-consuming. 

**_Foul, disgusting, terrible children. Evil, unruly, unworthy children._ **

_They needed to learn their lesson._ **That, or for the sake of the rest of Fodlan, they needed to lie down and die already!**

Byleth jumped slightly. _Where... where did that thought even come from?_ She couldn't tell anymore. Couldn't tell what thoughts were her own and what terrible musings were born from mental illnesses no one had ever bothered to address. The moment the thoughts passed it was back to a numb kind of dull, and the world fell away to a silent hum that was maddening. Like she'd never actually left that dark, dark place. 

She missed Sothis. 

_Everything hurt._

(-)(-)(-)(-)

Mortals shouldn't hold the title of God or Goddess, but was _Byleth even a mortal to begin with?_ Born from a clone of Sothis, a reincarnation of the aforementioned deity. Sharing both a body and a soul with her. The slight taper of her ears had never been noticeable. Neither had the strands of dark green that had existed long before she came to the monastery. Everything strange and wrong and abnormal looked just so slight that even if they were marginally uncanny, everything wrong about Byleth could quietly be chalked up to being the defects of a long since broken child. At least, up until her hair turned mint green and the world left her entirely alone. 

Alone was still debatable. She would personally debate that she was alone. 

Rhea, of course, had other ideas about that. Other plans which Byleth had never actually been a part of as more than a piece or a cog. Rhea wanted Byleth to die, to just disappear. For the lines to blur entirely and the difference between Byleth and Sothis to all but fracture into thousands of little pieces like some poorly made glass doll. 

Rhea had still been betting on that wish when she spread large draconian wings and tried to fight a war almost entirely on her own. A foolish decision. One that in any other reset would have just ended in misery and probably death for Rhea. How lucky she was to finally, finally start receiving her wish. 

Byleth's head was an ugly mess of thoughts and sounds that weren't entirely her own. Memories that had never belonged to her and still weren't meant to. So clearly could she conjure up thoughts and feelings which had belonged to Sothis. She could practically see the Red Canyon in its former glory, when it had been home to thousands who looked just like Sothis. Byleth could also remember the pain of trying to heal the world after the Nabateans had to defend their homes. She could remember the mind rotting and quivering pain echoing through her entire being when Nemesis slowly and deliberately carved open her still-living body to remove each vertebra of her spine individually. 

Her grip tightened around the hilt of the Sword of the Creator as she watched the Empire and the Church fight against one another. Her back hurt, but not as much as her head. 

All she could really do was float through the battle like some kind of specter. No one attacked her, no one even seemed to notice her. Maybe she didn't exist. Maybe she was just the ghost of Sothis, floating along through her land which had been ravaged by children with needs that never got met, her own daughter included. 

_Where was the line? What was Byleth and what was Sothis? What was Beginning and what was End?_ She couldn't find it anymore, it was just a big tangle of knots. _What was her name again? Sothis? Byleth?_

She could feel the line drawn somewhere, deep in the corners of her being. Weak, but still being held up. A separate piece of 'herself' sectioned off by a different 'herself'. The last testament of when it was 'themselves' inside of her head and not just 'herself'. It was a desperate and pathetic attempt, one that she didn't know if she should be furious with or thankful for. Until she could decide, she resolved to leave it be. 

Byleth was gone. Sothis was gone. There was only one being now, and that little tiny sliver of something else. _Who was it hiding behind that wall? Was it Byleth? Was it Sothis?_ Perhaps it was both of them, consciously trying to keep themselves from being dissolved into the soupy chaos that whatever was left was currently trying to swim through. Whoever She was now, she couldn't tell. She was both. Both and all, oneness. Finally, peaceful for once with a kind of elegant, wrong singularity. She was one and she was divine. And that divinity started to slowly begin mingling with her grief and her wrath. 

Those feelings which had tainted what had once been Byleth carried over because Sothis and Byleth were still there even if it was hard to hear themselves and each other over the ringing. Those horrible feelings which led to this, the feelings which had curled around one's stomach and ruined her from the inside out, slowly began to taint the other. 

The final result wasn't a pretty picture, but it was who they were. Who she is.

The battle around her had gone completely mute even though it was still raging. A pair of wings slammed against the air, a giant gust of wind blowing back enemy forces. And her. She felt her feet fly out from under her as she went into a freefall. She wasn't scared. Something like this wouldn't kill her. She had a goal now, a mission. She'd be back soon enough. There wasn't a damn thing anyone was going to be able to do to stop that. 

...

 _Whoever was sitting behind the walled-off portion of their being began to silently weep._

(-)(-)(-)(-)

Humming. She could hear humming, like a gentle lullaby that she used to sing to her children. _Which children? The children of the monastery or the children of the canyon?_ She couldn't remember which ones she sang to, but it was usually her singing this song. It was odd to hear the song resonating in her ears, the last pieces of herself mixing and dissolving. There was a rock in it all though. A piece of her that continued to refuse to fall away. She believed it was this piece that sang. 

The humming paused for a moment and she heard a gasp. One that sounded like it was laced with panic. "No, no. Please stay asleep, just stay asleep. Don't wake up, please. Go to sleep, go to bed. You've done enough damage, you'll only make things worse, so much worse. Worse for the both of us. Worse for yourself. Please, you have to understand that no matter how badly you're hurting now, the more you hurt them the more you're just going to hurt later. You're in pain, almost delirious with it. You're sick, very very sick. So please, Byleth. Please just sleep. It's enough, you've done enough." The voice that wasn't a piece of her said. 

It addressed her as Byleth, but she didn't know if she should be called Byleth anymore. Just like she wasn't Sothis anymore. The piece that had spoken wasn't all of Sothis. It bled of pieces of herself which had slowly begun to drip and dissolve. She wasn't devoured yet, but pieces of who she was had been torn away, even if Sothis tried to stroke this new being's head and coo her to sleep as though they didn't share as soul. As though they weren't just one being and this wasn't just delaying the inevitable. 

Another small piece of her, like an annoying thorn, stung into the back of her head. Perhaps there was still some Byleth. But calling herself Byleth would be an insult at this point. Though, if it was an insult to herself or to Byleth, she couldn't say. 

_Who was she?_ **_Who was she?_ ** She couldn't tell anymore, but she wasn't Sothis and she wasn't Byleth. Both of them were torn at, their pieces being taken and melted and reformed into whatever she was. _So who was she?_ Goddess, she told herself, she was Goddess. That was it, that was all. That was what was left of Her. No matter how badly little chunks and thorns of Sothis and Byleth tried to break away, it wasn't going to happen. Just like death, her own existence had been made inevitable the moment the war began. But Goddess was still tired. 

She didn't have all of her strength back yet, so she allowed herself to be lulled into sleep by the gentle melody. Only for a bit longer. 

(-)(-)(-)(-)

She awoke with a gaze that was narrowed, her lips drawn back into a snarl as she looked around in the darkness. Before her stood the last obstacle. A girl, a small one, with long green hair and sad eyes. Her mouth was slightly parted as though she'd just been interrupted in the middle of another lullaby. 

"Oh," she said, smiling ruefully. "I should have known that a ghost of a God-like myself wouldn't keep you pacified forever. You aren't going back to sleep now, are you?" She asked. The only answer the Ghost God received was a snarl that had long since passed the point of sounding marginally human. 

"Yes, I see. So this is the creature you've decided to become? You have fallen, you tragic child."

Goddess felt her teeth clench together, fangs bared like a _wild animal_ . She could only see _red._ The beautiful shade of _red_ that reminded her of blood--the _blood_ of her enemies. The blood of her beloved students. Even the blood of her _father’s_ decaying corpse when Kronya had slain him. The blood that ran rivers _red._ All she could see was the corruptive hue and it drove her _mad._ Deep and throaty, her larynx emitted a feral snarl. Her fingers tensed up, like _claws_ ready for the hunt. 

**_Kill her! KILL HER! Kill, kill, kill, kill--_ **

Voices rang out in the forefront of Goddess’s head and she let out a loud scream of agony, those same claw-like fingers digging into her scalp, pulling at her hair as she felt every bit of _sanity_ leave her body. Blood. She craved blood. Blood for vengeance or for her own satisfaction? She wasn’t sure what it was anymore, but it drove her forward. She ran towards Sothis and tackled her to the ground, pinning her down with her hands. 

The green-haired goddess let out a choked gasp, writhing and wiggling in her vessel’s hands, choking the life out of her. Sothis immediately powered up her fists with her magic--a type of magic long forgotten, and certainly one that she had taught her daughter, Rhea, nearly a millennium ago. Her fist met tender flesh, forcing the self-proclaimed Goddess up and away from her. She gasped for air, her own heartbeat racing as she flipped back onto her feet. She made sure that her fists were at the ready. 

Goddess crashed into the rocky floor, tumbling for a moment before her nails dug into the ground. She could feel the ache in her fingers as trails of red appeared where they dragged across the earth. She growled, tasting the flavor of _iron_ in the back of her throat. “Did you think you would be able to kill me so easily? You’re certainly a fool if you believe I am just to sit around and allow _you_ of all mortals to destroy me.” She heard Sothis exclaim, the fire in her opponent’s eyes told her enough. 

Running on all fours she launched herself at Sothis again, feeling the green-haired girl’s fists collide with her body again, easily batting her away like a ragdoll. So she leaped at Sothis again. Thwack! And again. Thwack! Pain ripped at Goddess’s body, blood seeping from her mouth. She spat it out, snarling once again as she looked up at her _prey_ , heaving a shuddering breath. 

“This is _not_ what I wanted you to become! You’re so much more than this, Byleth!” 

Goddess let out an enraged howl, “I am no longer Byleth! You, you let me suffer this fate for years! How dare you speak to me as if you know who I am!” 

Charging back at the smaller girl, Goddess grabbed her fist when Sothis attempted to strike her again. She grabbed Sothis with her full might before flipping her and slamming her down onto the floor as hard as she could. A loud crack sounded from the impact, and a smile curled up from her lips, eyes widening in utter _amusement. So this is what it’s like to feel something again,_ she mused to herself, allowing herself to **_laugh_** at the irony. _So I can only feel when it comes to pain._

Sothis managed to shake her grip away and she immediately darted backward, eyes narrowed. “You aren’t even human anymore, are you?” She asked, though it wasn’t really a question at this point. The disappointment dripped from her tongue with each uttered word, “you were chosen to save the world, but here you are causing destruction instead.” 

Goddess yelled again, her voice already raw from each feral screech before it. “Save the world?! **_Save the world?!_ ** Do you have **any** idea how much suffering I went through because of **_your_ ** mistake?!” Goddess closed the distance between them both, but she knew Sothis was backing away with each step. “Over and over again I killed those who I **_loved!_ ** I saw my father **_die_** over and over again! And you tell me, that I was meant to save the world?!” 

She threw a punch, her hand hitting nothing but hard stone. Despite the sound of a crack, it didn’t hurt. It was just warm, skin bursting with another release of crimson. “You gave me hope! You gave me the power to save others, but not even my own father!” Another punch. She managed to just barely land the hit. Sothis recoiled back, a small drip of red coming from her busted lip. _So even a god could bleed._

Goddess kicked outwards, aiming for Sothis’s head. It was best to go all-out--use _every_ part of her body in this fight. Sothis retaliated, just landing a few hits. Perhaps she would have landed a couple more, but she’d quite literally backed herself into a wall and it seemed that she refused to yield the position. “I killed Edelgard, the woman I loved! I killed Dimitri, the man I saved too late! And Claude? Claude left me to rot on this goddess forsaken continent alone!” 

“That was never my intention! You know this! **_You know this!!_ **” 

Another enraged scream ripped itself from Goddess’s throat as she finally overpowered the smaller girl. Fingers gripped tightly onto the little goddess’s shoulders. Pushing, pushing even when the Sothis was kicking and punching her. Of course, Sothis didn’t scream. She wouldn’t. She grit her teeth with a silent glare as Goddess roared and growled. Goddess’s teeth were bared and grit together they might shatter, blood continued to seep from the gaps between her makeshift fangs. She didn’t care. _She didn’t care._ Sothis managed to hit her off just one more time, but it was a _fatal mistake._

Byleth flung herself forward and slammed the entire force of her body’s weight against Sothis, sinking her fangs into the goddess’s neck. A suffocating cry of _agony_ warbled on the tone of one who was once so proud, filling the throne room like sweet music. Her throne room. Teeth sunk through tissue and into tendons, and Goddess pulled roughly with her mouth gripped tight. The blood splattered from the freshly made wound stained her countenance. It stained Sothis’s clothes, her skin, and the woman who was once so mighty, who in reality had been once so kind to what was originally Byleth, could only sputter out weak cries of pain. 

“I’m sorry!” she screamed out, feeling Goddess rip out a chunk of flesh from her body. Unable to move her left arm, she wiggled feebly before accepting her morbid fate. Both spiritually and physically being devoured by the monster of her accidental making, again killed by something she’d once considered to be so precious to her. There was no way she could fight when someone both bigger and stronger had moved to completely pin her down. 

“Ngh..!” Sothis could feel Goddess sink her teeth in again, tearing at her shoulder. “No amount of apologizing will save you now...but I know it’s been my fault that you turned out this way.” 

Another scream forced itself from her throat as Sothis was _devoured alive._ “I should have been wiser with my actions...I should have taught my daughter better--” 

Goddess heaves and growls, the flavor of tender meat and blood driving her _crazy._ The Goddess paused for a moment as Sothis let out another screech, this one in panic. This one sounding so much more like a cry for help. For a split second, there flickered something else in Goddess’s gaze. Something that wasn’t Goddess, but actually looked like Byleth. Complete with terror and horror. It disappeared again moments later, snuffed out like a candle before it could even materialize. Goddess gave a beastial growl, blood dripping from her chin, her lips, her fangs. Even her hair, from the impact of blood that sprayed against her face. With her left arm rendered useless, Sothis used her right hand to stroke Byleth’s cheek--In spite of the pain that paralyzes her to her spot. “I loved you...like my own child...to see you end up like this...I’ve failed you, and everyone who lives in Fodlan…” 

Goddess stopped and she glared at the mauled girl underneath her. Sothis just smiled at her. The same sweet and sickly smile that Byleth had grown to adore over the years. Sothis’s thumb gently rubbed against the blood-stained skin of Goddess’s cheek, her smile never wavering. “I ask...that now...you live the rest of your days without regret...that is all that I ask of you.” 

Life ceased after Sothis’s words, weak and sickly, her hand falling down onto the ground and Goddess remained frozen on the spot, watching the other fade away, while other parts of her were consumed physically. Her gut momentarily twisted in revulsion at the realization. Sothis was gone, alongside the final wall inside of Goddess's soul. She was awful and whole and one. There was no more they, or it, just she. She who was vengeful and ferocious, a God reborn with all the powers of the Goddess reborn and then some. Unstable and unflinching. 

There was no more darkness, her eyes fluttering open. Only dampness and a gloomy grey sky that seemed like it was crying. 

Weeping in mourning, perhaps. Did it weep for what had already happened or what was to come?

Goddess stood up and began her hunt.

**Author's Note:**

> Lucia: I still simply live with the pain.
> 
> Aconite: Pain indeed. This was a fun little challenge to see how angsty we could make something if we worked together. If you like angst then I'd recommend hopping over to Lucia's other works, especially Phantom Pain which this story takes some of the elements from to make it hurt even more. You can find the link below.
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751114/chapters/51893770


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